Another week of 2012 down the drain, February almost at an end, where is it all going? Well Bob is off on his quest to be the go to guy for wordpress video blogging, and Ralph is getting ready to be either an Italian, or an American lost in Italy. So that leaves me, riding a stumbling pony around the Cantankerous Old Coots stable.

So with all of the lack of discipline and lack of posts from me it will either be a ghost town of old promoted posts or I will get back into the good saddle and write like I used to when this whole blogging thing got going.

I am inspecting my girth strap as we speak. Posts will be new and fresh, hopefully they will be interesting.

Have a great Trip Ralph, make your wife think she is more important than blogging for a while….

Do you ever have this post written in your head and even mostly edited, it just takes too much time to get it written? Yea. Turns out there is not a plugin to allow people access to your wonderfully crafted posts in your head. You still must write them out!

So this week has been interesting for Coots subject matter. Bob’s wonderfully snarky post about bin Laden, Ralph’s lament over old movie theaters, well, today, I wan’t to talk about a very special birthday. And then you go and do some more research and find that there is a “(the quotes are important here, think air quotes to get the sarcasm implied)”WEBSITE” that has a different date than the other 47 sites that you look at. Imagine that, something on the internet is wrong.

So I searched for something else that happened on this day in history and came up with the first H bomb test or a patent for wireless radio broadcasting. I don’t really feel like writing about nuclear warheads so I am going to go with wireless broadcasting.

Back in 1908 Nathan B. Stubblefield created a primitive cell phone type device that transmitted via electromagnetic induction. Didn’t work very well and would never be real “radio” broadcasting like Marconi came up with, but it was something to send information over space without wires. Think of what we do now without wires. I am writing this post on my laptop that is connected to the internet over a wireless network. If I wan’t to print, the printer is in the basement hooked to my other computer, but I can connect.

I have wireless headphones, wireless phones, wireless keyboards and mice, heck even my new MP3 player can connect to the internet wirelessly. Think how much easier losing wires has made our lives. How many electronic things actually have to be connected anymore?

Now I am not saying Nathan Stubblefield is the cause of this wireless revolution, because his inventions are not actually radio waves. For instance, his inventions could never reach the International Space Station, yet with other technology we can. (just an aside, I think that the ISS is the freaking coolest thing that mankind has ever invented. That is another post though.) But Mr. Stubblefield was a thinker. He saw potential in holding a device and talking with someone far away.

Even if his tech isn’t used today, the same thinking and desire to do the next biggest and greatest thing still pushes people. The entrepreneurial spirit still makes people bust their humps to invent things that they can use on the ISS. (did I say that is the coolest thing ever?)

Now, my question to you all is, what have you invented? By invented I mean written or created. Will your idea spark millions of others? Will it inspire people? Will your name end up on a “this day in history” search because of your invention? If not, get out there and create. Quit following the pack and create your own spot in history. Now if you will excuse me, my Stay at Home Dad site needs some work.

By now, Ralph is winging his way over the ocean heading towards the land of canals and spaghetti, Italy. He has his bags packed, his cell phones rented, and this blog pushed to the back of his mind where it will reside with many other undesirable things like pond scum.

A vacation. Do you ever have a “vacation” that you come back from, rested, relaxed, and ready to return to work? Yea me neither. I am hoping that it will be different for Ralph. See, he is just going with his wife to Italy. We can only hope that he brings her back with him. I guess it depends just how bad the flight actually is. But that is another story.

Over the past year I do believe that I have grown complacent, letting Ralph and Bob, well mostly Ralph, have at this site and run with it. Now It is back to me and the fine work that used to fly from my fingers.

I witnessed a phenomenon in Wal-Mart tonight. Maybe it was just Wal-Mart but there was a lady (term loosely used entirely based on gender and not the language) who was walking with a cart full of kids down the main aisle. A guy with a couple of kids himself came out from a crossing aisle in front of her. He said “Oh Sorry” as he got out of her way. She replied with a few explicatives and “Fine just run over me!”

Now, you may be wondering what cantankerous lesson this could yield. Well it is not the attitude of the woman, entirely. She was what Ralph has referred to as an Angry Old Fart in this post. Now, what the man did was not cantankerous. It was not even, well, very manly.

He meekly said, “I didn’t.” to the womans back as she was stalking away. Now, the cantankerousness is available. It should be used. This situation left the woman, who was in the wrong (not by being a woman but by being a pain in the ass) with a feeling of superiority and self satisfaction.

I felt sorry for the guy and if I would have had a coots business card I would have given him the first 5 lessons at Coots University for free(it’s called foreshadowing kids, look it up), just to help this poor guy get his balls back from his wifes purse and be a man damnit!

I believe the correct response should have been something along the lines of, “You didn’t mind it last night!” or “Watch where you’re driving that stupid shopping cart you cow!” Or even just “Same to you!” followed by a rude gesture or explosion of flatulence.

We are getting way too pacified people! We let those few who think they are in charge brow beat the rest of us into giving in. We let the medical community push us around under pretenses of patient confidentiality when it is all just a sham. Why should people get away with being rude in any store when someone apologizes.

Sure, if you shop at all, there will be a moment when you step in front of someone or cut someone off or even walk out of an aisle too fast and nearly hit someone. A polite “excuse me” or “sorry” should be sufficient to not make a federal case out of it. Of course, there are those who want to push.

To them you can only respond with a “Same to you!” or “The sun seems to be going down would you mind bending over seeings as how the light shines from your ass?”

Take a stand. Be a real person and not one of the faceless automatons who gives in to people who are louder or are seemingly more forceful. Don’t just do what the nancy boys over in legal tell you you must do. A coot says what he or she thinks. A coot sticks to that. Like we have said before, a true Coot will give the deserving party the Mapquest directions straight to Hell without passing go.

Good Monday Folks! Well the time is upon us, fall. Kids everywhere are headed back to school in droves, from elementary students to college students.

We here at Cantankerous Old Coots are following suit in a way. We are opening the Cantankerous Old Coots University! Yes today brings in a whole new era in the pursuit of Cantankerosity.

The Coots University will be your ultimate source for all things Cantankerous. Forums to discuss cantankerosity and lessons to bring out your inner coot will be paramount.

Today We release the first set of lessons in how to be a Cantankerous Old Coot in the finest of PDF EBooks. This set of lessons is absolutely free for the time being when you sign up for our mailing list. Plus anyone who signs up for said mailing list between now and Labor Day (September 6) and the first day of Autumn, September 23, will be on a list to receive special discounts on tuition as well as other goodies as they come along.

Our first set of subscribers is very special. Become one of the students at Cantankerous Old Coots University today and you will be well on your way to becoming part of the faculty.